Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Real World Experience Apparently Worthless

Meanwhile, back in the San Francisco Chronicle, David Lazurus reads the grounds in his coffee cup to undercover conspiracy! in the nomination of Francis Harvey as Secretary of the Army:

President Bush was widely reported last week to be on the verge of nominating local boy Francis Harvey to serve as secretary of the Army. So let's meet the man who may soon be the newest player in the top ranks of the military-industrial complex.

Harvey, a Los Gatos resident, sits on the board of Bridge Bank of Silicon Valley and is a member of the board of regents of Santa Clara University. But it's a safe bet that neither of these gigs placed him in the running for the Army's senior civilian post.

More likely, it was Harvey's ties to the defense industry and the influential Carlyle Group that won him the Bush administration's favor.

Okay, let me summarize how this left coaster knocks Harvey:

Harvey is former chief operating officer for a division of Westinghouse Electric, a leading defense contractor.
Harvey sits on the board of a couple companies affiliated with the Carlyle Group, an investment company.
Because the Carlyle Group has had as its "advisers and leaders" (which could mean that among the numerous firms funded or invested in by the company, an investment company for crying out loud) numerous other, well, leaders, it is obviously the American Illuminati Clubhouse.
Harvey serves as vice chairman of Maryland's Duratek, which specializes in the handling and disposing of radioactive materials. Oddly enough, the Departments of Defense and Energy do business with firms that handle and dispose of radioactive materials. The Department of Education does not--and that in itself must insinuate something!
Harvey is a board member of Carlyle-owned Kuhlman Electric, a maker of transformers. Even though it has no defense contracts, it's Carlyle-owned and therefore must do something bad, of which Harvey is undoubtedly the mastermind, or in which he is implicitly explicitly complicit.

So what does it all mean? That if Harvey is confirmed, he will favor his friends and companies for which he's worked? How will Haliburton stand for it?

I guess the messages we can take away from this column, and those of its wide stripe, are that the only people qualified to run the government are not people who have real world experience managing organizations in relevant fields; oh, but no, the only people qualified for appointment are people who have hidden in academia or in newsrooms for most of their adult lives. These people have integrity, and presumably no friends to help.

Also, the second message is that any appointment from the business world would not throw himself into a new, govern-mental position with the same enthusiasm for maximizing resources and utility that made him or her successful in business and worthy of appointment; oh, but no, once they're on the government payroll, it's all about sucking the teat, unlike academics, intellectuals, or integrous media or entertainment icons.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:28 AM